Slowly Benjamin nodded and craned his neck toward Helspira. “Take care of my guy for me, yeah?”
She swept away a tear and smiled. “Always.”
His heart pounding, head light, Sikras forced his body to remain poised, composed. “Any chance you renounced Dionus in the last five seconds and want to wait for me wherever all the godless heathens end up when they die?”
An echoey laugh rattled through Benjamin’s jaw. “You’d never want me to leave Imri all alone in the twin gods’ afterlife.”
Sikras smirked. “No. I wouldn’t. When you see her—”
“I’ll tell her you said hi. And, Sikras? I love you.”
Sikras bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted blood. Fearing he might back out if he didn’t do it now, he gesticulated the proper finger movements, whispered the matching words, and stripped off each layered protection spell, like skins on an onion. “I love you, too.” Giving Benjamin one final look, he swiped his hand, severing concentration on the spell that anchored his soul.
The light abandoned the thread. His bones hit the earth. Sikras flinched when the full force of the Cat’s Eye returned to him in a blink. But for all the power woven through his veins, he never felt weaker than when he stared at Benjamin’s unmoving corpse.
When Sikras was certain Benjamin was gone, certain of no chance to resurrect him, Sikras buckled at the knees and crashed into the cold snow.
The pressure of Helspira’s arms fell around his neck, and it took a moment to process that she had come around to kneel before him. “Why didn’t you tell him about Vessik?” she asked.
“If I did,” Sikras replied, each word shaking despite his effort to steady them, “he would have stayed.”
Silence. Nothing but the compression of Helspira’s embrace. “I’m so sorry, Sikras.”
He steadied his breaths, each one slow and purposeful, reminding him he could still breathe, though it felt like he was suffocating.
“I’m here,” came Helspira’s voice, so close but sounding so far away. “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
In a flash, he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her into his chest, held her as tightly as his shaking arms allowed and, for the first time in his life, mourned the loss of Vessik Holm, Benjamin Reese, and Imri Nikabod.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sikras
SIKRAS LET OUT AN IMPRESSEDwhistle from inside the stone mausoleum. Normally, personal crypts like this felt claustrophobic, but Saelihn had certainly gone out of her way to erect something spacious enough to accommodate Benjamin’s and Imri’s caskets. Strange to think they had both been dead for years, that this structure had been here for years, and only just recently had bodies to fill it.
“Suspenders,” Sikras said as he stood before Benjamin’s casket, the clothing draped over his arm. “Fresh from the tailor. Wouldn’t you know it? I can master countless hand movements and their accompanying verbal components, dedicate numerous Rack and Ruin strategies to memory, and memorize the choreography of dozens of different dances, but I never thought for one second about suspenders instead of pants.” He laid them atop Benjamin’s casket, with a sigh. “Better late than never, right?”
